Red Dead Tacos

The theme of this review is redemption. Redemption for John Marston and possibly redemption for Taco Bell because I’ll be reviewing their new cantina tacos.


First, the tacos. When I heard about cantina tacos from Taco Bell, I immediately got excited. It’s so obvious. Tacos are a delicious and inherently cheap food. Why is it that Taco Bell has been messing them up for so long when a good taco from almost any taqueria costs around $1.50 and tastes amazing? It seemed like there was hope for the chain yet. But, I thought, I’m sure they will find a way to screw it up and they sort of did.



First, the worst of the bunch. The carnitas pork taco.



This tasted like the insides of a slim jim were squirted onto a corn tortilla and slightly warmed. The texture wasn’t far off from what that would be like either. The pork wasn’t so much shredded as it was smashed into an unrecognizable paste. Absolutely terrible.


Next up, chicken.



As readers of this blog may know, I am not a fan of chicken tacos. They always seem to be the worst offering on any menu although they’re probably your safest bet at a place like Taco Bell. At first bite, this chicken taco didn’t change my mind. The chicken tasted like it had been pressed into neat little cubes. You know that eerily smooth uniform texture that most fast food meat has. Then it was rolled around in some cheap bbq sauce. However, I am biased against chicken so I decided to get a second opinion from someone who loves chicken tacos. He stated that they tasted like “sweaty armpits.”


Finally, the steak.



At this point you’re probably expecting another negative review, but surprisingly these weren’t bad. They had the same thing going on as the chicken (one weird uniform texture) but they weren’t chewy and the marinade wasn’t awful. If I was faced with eating at Taco Bell again I would not mind eating these. Do they spell redemption for Taco Bell? Maybe. But as I said in the beginning, with cheap delicious tacos being plentiful, I don’t know why I would choose these.


For comparison, I decided to have a crunchy beef supreme taco.



Awful. And this is coming from someone who loves Old El Paso taco night and Trader Joe’s Frozen Mini Tacos.


Now onto the game.



I played the shit out of Red Dead Redemption. I got 100% completion in about a month after first starting it. I am a big fan of Rockstar Games, specifically GTA and I have never once gotten 100%. Being familiar with the Grand Theft Auto format, I felt right at home playing this game. But the environments and the overall experience are what got me more involved. There is nothing like being a cowboy and riding off into the sunset. And shooting a bear just feels better than running over a pedestrian. It felt good to be John Marston and I can’t say that for any of Rockstar’s other characters. The only negative thing I have to say is that I finished the missions fairly quickly and didn’t experience much of the bugginess others had been complaining about, but once I was in free roam those problems really started to show to the point of frustration. Regardless, I continued to play even after the freezes or having to reset because I was stuck in a rock so they couldn’t have been that bad.


So how does it go with tacos? Excellently. Especially when you’re in Mexico. If Marston could have used tacos to refuel health, this game might have been perfect.